AND HORTICULTUKALREGISTER. * 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO S2 NORTH MARKET STREET, (AoRicutTrRXL Wabehoose.) 



roxj. xvm.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9, 1839. 



tlHO. 14. 



N. E. FARMER 



For the New England Farmer. 



'ITHE SPIRIT OF THE AGE— AGRICULTU- 

 RAL PAPEtlS, &c. 

 !Mk Editor — The strongest characteristic of the 

 Lge we live in, is the spirit of progress and ini- 

 )rovement which pervades thecommunity : improve- 

 ncnt in every ihing susceptible of it; — improvement 

 n art — improvement in science — and, may I not 

 idd, improvement in human nature. There exists, 

 n fact, a progressive excitement — and so long as 

 ts effects shall be to substitute right for wrong, to 

 levelop mind and stimulate genius to invention, it 

 s to be hoped it may not subside. 



Among the arts and sciences which have felt, ir. 

 lifiercnt degrees, the beneficial influence of this 

 mproving spirit, is to be named agriculture. (I al- 

 ude particularly to our own.) The obstacles which 

 lave heretofore prevented this great national inier- 

 st from being as an art better understood, and as a 

 science correctly practised, are fast being removed : 

 iged error is receding before the quickened march 

 )f mind, the light of science, and the convincinf; 

 ieductions of reason and philosophy ; — deep-roote'i 

 )rejudices, venerated rather for their antiquity that 

 heir worth, are giving way to the enriching truth.- 

 )f modern discovery ; — twin-fettered ignorance am 

 uperstition are fast losing their baleful influenct 

 )ver human affairs, and men are beginning to se? 

 md appreciate the might of mind when enlightexe.1 

 )y science. 



It is well for the prosperity of our country and its 

 very interest, that the improving spirit abroad is 

 effecting a revolution in our husbandry, — a revolu- 

 ion of mind and a revolution of matter ; — and, as 

 hese mighty agents of good or evil 'never go back,' 

 ive can look with confidence for the consummation 

 jf the desired reform which has commenced and is 

 •apidly progressing in those parts of our country 

 where light hath reached, reason convinced, and 

 aractice demonstrated Through all the clouds 

 Hrhich yet hover around, the attentive observer can- 

 not fail to discern 'the dawning of a brighter day 

 for American agriculture,' — a day which shall give 

 the modern system of farming the ascendancy over 

 the old ' exhausting system,' whose only honor is 

 its age. We do not believe that error can long 

 flourish when right is abroad to combat it ; 



" Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 



The eternal years of God are hers ; 

 While Error writhing, lives in pain, 



Or dies amid her worshippers." 



The old system of cultivating the earth has little of 

 right in any of its processes ; — it was conceived in 

 error and brought forth in ignorance : — the modern 

 system is the offspring of science, and bears on its 

 front the impress of right : it is supported by rea- 

 son, by philosophy, and by the experience of the 

 intelligent; and as soon as it is generally under- 

 stood it will be generally adopted : the prosperity 

 of the country demands this : its independence calls 

 for it; and it may be necessary for the perpetuity 



of our existence as a free nation; for, judging 

 from the sad history of past republics, liberty finds 

 support in agricultural strength and danger in com- 

 mercial greatness,* 



What are the causes which have combined to 

 prevent agriculture from advancing with the other 

 arts and sciences .' They are to be found in the 

 prejudice of farmers for ancient customs ; in their 

 (seeming) unbelief in the pro'gress of mind and con- 

 sequent aversion to improvements; in their hostili- 

 ty to what they term ' book farming' which may be 

 defined the practising of scientific truths and the 

 recommendations of the intelligent, promulgated 

 through the press. These are the principal causes 

 which have operated to retard the progress of im- 

 provement in the rural art. Thanks to agricultural 

 newspapers, they do not now exist to the extent 

 they did a few a few years since, but tlieir preva- 

 lence is still extensive — by far too much so for our 

 national independence,f for the pecuniary interest 

 of the husbandman and for every interest of the 

 community. How shall it be lessened ? By the 

 dissemination oj knowledge among the yeomanry. — 

 'Knowledge is power' — it confers the power which 

 the farmer needs, — the power of making every inch 

 of land productive, and to produce to the extent of 

 its capability, — the power of overcoming by art the 

 obstructions of nature. The knowledge which will 

 give this power, is most easily found and conveyed 

 in agricultural papers. These are within the reach 

 of every cultivator, and should be patronised by all 

 — as well by the indigent as the opulent ; for their 

 tendenc'y is, not to make the rich richer at the ox- 

 pense of the poor, but to make the poor happier in 

 an increase of their crops, and show them how to 

 becotrie independent of the rich. There is not a 

 whit of economy in refusing to become a subscriber 

 to one of these publications. He who has but one 

 acre might be learned through this means how to 

 cultivate that so as to treble his usual products, 

 alike with him of his hundred acres : at any rate, 

 either could not fail to be benefited by a year's 

 reading of a paper, to more than treble the amount 

 of the subscription price. This is proved in the 

 case of those who are subscribers. It is a fact 

 worth noting, that you seldom (I might, probably, 

 say never,) meet with a subscriber to an agricultural 

 paper who does not set a high value upon it, or 

 who is in the least dissatisfied with paying a dollar 

 or two a year for its periisal. Such an investment 

 of money is in their opinion the best they could 

 possibly make, as none other to them yields so great 

 an interest, I was told by a farmer-^a subscriber 

 to Judge Buei's Cultivator — that a plan which he 

 found in that paper for steaming apples, potatoes, 

 &c. for his swine, had been of a vast deal more 

 consequence to him than a dozen years' subscrip- 

 tion money. Such instances are common, — in fact 

 it is absolutely impossible, in our view, that some 



*I mean to be understood that the freedom of a country 

 agriculturally great, is more secure than that of a country 

 great only in a comcaercial sense. 



tHowever independent we may think oursehes, wecannot 

 in truth be styled ind^ipendent, till we cease to rely upon for- 

 eign oatioos for soi»s of the essentials of life. 



useful information or valuable hint should not be 

 acquired in the course of a year's reading, which 

 will not repay many fold the price paid for the pa- 

 per. Farmers need to be made aware of these 



facts, and to be shown through the convincing 

 means of experiment, how falsely founded is their 

 notion of economy in refusing to take a paper de- 

 voted exclusively to their interests. 



These vehicles of knowledge, are productive of 

 good in another respect ; — they take with the young 



with those whose minds are not yet warped by 



prejudice nor fully imbued wiih false notions, — with 

 whom any thing novel and plausible in theory, be- 

 gets a passion for experiment. I will state an in- 

 stance the better to illustrate my meaning. A far- 

 mer of my acquaintance in New-Hampshire, was 

 bitterly prejudiced against all other modes of farm- 

 ing than tiiat practised by his ancestors from the 

 earliest generation, and transmitted unimpaired 

 (and unimproved) to him. He was loud in his 

 abuse and ridicule of ' book farming,' about whick 

 he talked as learnedly as he could of other matters 

 whose discussion renders something more than a. 

 knowledge of the alphabet and Itco ideas necessary — 

 declaring, in his wisdom, that it was ' intended for 

 the wealthy and college larnt,'' and that 'he was' nt 

 fool enouirh yet to plant his land with mulberry 

 trees ! and buy corn to live on,' &c. Tliis man 

 had a sop — a lad of some nineteen years — who was 

 much inclined to reading, and who had often en- 

 deavored to induce his father to subscribe for an 

 agricultMi^ I onper, but without effect. The father 

 iiad tiic Q.jsfortuue to be stricken with a dangerous 

 sickness, and the management of the farm devolved 

 upon the son, who had obtained the parent's con- 

 sent to conduct it as he pleased, with the proviso 

 that he should plant no mulberry trees. As a pre- 

 liminary step to the reformation contemplated, the 

 son subscribed for an agricultural paper and follow- 

 ed 'book farming' to the extent of his means : the 

 swamp wns resorted to for materials for compost, 

 (an idea which never entered the head of the father,) 

 lime was purchased for manure ; the swine were in- 

 creased to increase the means of fertilising the soil ; 

 root culture was adopted — alternating crops — ma- 

 nuring by turning in green crops— (for which last 

 act. in particular, he incurred the censure of his 

 neio-hbors, who were unanimous in pronouncing 

 him" a ' fool,' 'notionv,' 'crack-brained boy,' &c.) 



and such other improvements made as he found 



suggested in his paper. 



The beneficial change which had been wrought 

 n the order of things on the farm, was so palpable 

 and manifest as to excite the wonder of the father 

 at his son's unexpected success, and he could not 

 help acknowledging that his prejudices against 

 'book farming' and agricultural papers were ill- 

 founded and supremely foolish. This farm, under 

 the father's exhausting culture comparatively a 

 desert and yielding but a poor return foi toil, has, 

 by the scientific and skilful management of the son, 

 been made to teem with plenty and well reward for 

 the sweat of the cultivator's brow. I have heard 

 this farmer declare that his yearly profits did not 

 exceed |100, and grumble at his ' hard lot.' Under 



